When Karen Alboucq enlisted in the Army in 1975, she had already been accepted to Penn State Hazleton for teaching. She turned it down.

“I just felt a need, almost like a calling, to join and to serve our country,” she said.

The Lehighton Area High School graduate completed basic training at Fort McClellan, Alabama, before entering the Army’s hospital corpsman program and later training as an orthopedic cast technician in San Francisco. She spent the remainder of her service at Letterman Army Medical Center, where she cared for soldiers returning from Vietnam; men who had been stabilized in Germany before making the long trip back to the West Coast.

The work left a lasting impression.

“Seeing the soldier come back — they’d lost a leg through combat — and then they’re able to get back and be functional again and get their quality of life back. That’s a good part of it,” Alboucq said.

She was discharged in 1978. The transition from a small Pennsylvania town to basic training in Alabama and then life in San Francisco was jarring at first.

“My mother cried her eyes out,” Alboucq recalled. “It was scary at first, but you’re with other women in basic training, and you’re thinking we have the same purpose. You learn survival tactics and things like that, and I became a stronger person.”

After her discharge, Alboucq and her late husband settled in the Lehighton area. Following his death, she poured herself into volunteerism; work she said was modeled for her early in life.

“I learned it from my mom,” she said. “My mom was a giving person, and my dad. They gave me a good upbringing.”

Today, that spirit of service spans several organizations. Alboucq is an ambassador for Pennsylvania Wounded Warriors in Carbon and Lehigh counties, helping raise awareness and direct funds to veterans facing financial hardship. She is also second vice president of American Legion Auxiliary Post 314 and a legionnaire at Legion Post 314 in Lehighton.

Among her most visible efforts is a women’s veterans group she helped establish, which gathers for breakfast on the third Thursday of each month at the Beacon 443 Diner. Now more than a year old, the group has about eight members and is open to any woman veteran who wants to join.

The group grew out of conversations that began at a veterans Stand Down, an event where Alboucq and volunteers from Ss. Peter and Paul Church in Lehighton prepare and serve lunches for veterans in need. When women veterans began showing up, bonds formed quickly.

“There were some women veterans that came through, and we started talking to each other about basic training, where we served,” Alboucq said. “We said we should really get together.”

The group includes women from multiple branches and eras of service, among them Navy nurses now in their 80s. Members are also planning a trip to Washington, D.C., to visit the Women in Military Service for America Memorial.

For Alboucq, the value of gathering is straightforward.

“We all experience basically some of the same things,” she said. “It’s a sisterhood type of thing.”

She is also quick to acknowledge what women veterans have long felt was missing.

“I don’t want to take anything away from the men, because, my God, they gave so much of their lives,” Alboucq said. “But we also had a purpose, and we need to be respected, too. Some people don’t really recognize us as much as we should be.”

In addition to her veterans work, Alboucq has been involved with the Lehighton Pool Pals for 20 years.

When asked what drives all of it, she pointed back to the same conviction that led her to enlist five decades ago.

“It gave me that mission to serve our country, to see what you can do for your country,” she said. “If we don’t do it, who’s going to do it?”

Asked if she would do it all again, she didn’t hesitate.

“I definitely would,” Alboucq said. “I think I would have stayed in longer. I probably would have made a career out of it.”

Her advice for young people considering military service is direct: “Step out of your comfort zone. It’s scary, but you still find good out of it, and there’s good in this world. There’s nothing better than volunteering your time and giving of yourself to somebody else.”

After nearly 50 years, Alboucq said she has no complaints about where she landed.

“It’s always good to come home,” she said. “We do have a beautiful community here.”